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"Ivy" That was all Adam said--just her na else

"No, Ada ht reason"

I don’t hate--

I couldn’t even finish the thought, because suddenly, Ivy was talking again, and it was very hard to breathe

"You’re my kid" She repeated the words "Mine, Tess"

I told myself that she meant that I was her responsibility now

"I’m not your sister" Those words were harder to misunderstand "I was never your sister"

I don’t understand

I don’t want to

"I was seventeen" Ivy’s ar, too, recently enlisted It was the first, last, and only tio And then, when I found out"

Found out Found out Found out The words echoed in e, Tess I was a kid, so when Mo would be for them to raise you, I said yes" She repeated herself then "I said yes"

I re me up the stairs

I re that they weren’t my parents They were her parents, and she wasn’tto keep you safe," Ivy toldat Ivy, a hundred thousand thoughts and ot on the plane

And then I shattered

CHAPTER 53

For the longest tiht ahead, feeling like a hitchhiker in sorown unbearably heavy I felt like I ain

I was seventeen, Ivy had said

I didn’t want to replay the words I didn’t want to picture Ivy at e I didn’t want to think about the one year we’d lived in the sae and it had been just Mom and Dad and me

Not my mom Not my dad